My pet peeve is people who leave dirty dishes in the sink rather than next to the sink. This seems to considered the correct/polite place to leave them by some people. But it means that other people can't use the sink without first moving your dishes!
A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
601–610 of 812 posts
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#602Or here’s a different theory. Maybe this couple weren’t actually in love anymore and just didn’t want to come to terms with it, because there was a confounding variable, namely, a child.
It’s not the toothpaste cap. You can argue about the toothpaste cap all you want, but really, truly, it’s not the toothpaste cap.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#603About 10 years ago, I had a internship at Newell Rubbermaid. As part of the experience, the entire group of interns across all the brands got to have lunch with the CEO and basically ask him anything we wanted. At some point, someone asked about his biggest regret. We all expected some business blunder, but he said that he was offered an executive position by Kraft to lead their Asian segment, and that his wife reall…
Reminded me of The Office. "It's not real until your wife is on board."
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Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate you sharing this. Reminds me of a class I took at the University of Illinois, it was a seminar in entrepreneurship for engineers, if I remember correctly. I believe a CEO of a $100M+ company came in and gave a speech. His first slide had a PowerPoint, on which he put something like, "3...2...1." Then he said, "3 wives, 2 divorces, and 1 heart attack. That's the real cost of entrepreneurship." I've rememb…
Mark Cuban had a different perspective when he was younger. “I went through girlfriends (who threatened) — ‘It is your business or me,'” the Shark Tank investor recalled. “And I was like — ‘What is your name again?’ It was just non-stop.” https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/shark-tank-star-mar... I'm not endorsing that comment. I just thought it was interesting to see how a notable entrepreneur approached relati…
It's a question of what you live for and where you find your worth. If you live for other people, and you find your worth in them, then you will direct your path accordingly.
If you find your worth from within, or perhaps from without in a very broad sense (making something big that the world needs/wants/admires), then 1:1 is not so important.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you are being triggered by the incessent whining over something trivial? That's emotional abuse. I wouldn't put up with that, this kind of stuff needs perspective. The only thing I got out of the article was that he was married to a control freak who liked to keep them off balance all the time.
Something that is trivial to one may be very large to another. There is a whole slew of reasons why but just because one partner deems something trivial the other may not agree. Some things may objectively be trivial but we are a complex species. The flip side of this argument is that if its so trivial for one, why don't they change the behavior for the other who deems it non trivial?
Because this kind of behaviour is endemic in emotional abusers. There will always be something else that annoys them. Emotional abusers look for weaknesses and exploit them mercilessly. They don't really care about the issue and will move on to something else, ad infinitum.
This is the very reason why you never give a bully or a narcissist a single inch. What they are trying to do is keep you off balance, make you walk on eggshells and create a bubble of control.
If it's genuinely something that is causing a problem that is completely different from the typical needling/whining/unnecessary argument escalation over trivial bullshit that an emotional abuser will mete out.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
Translated into a slightly different venue: if partner A's sense of order is jarred by laundry near, and not in, hamper, but partner B just doesn't care, then the steady state is A always cleaning up after B. A's happiness depends on a certain degree of order in the shared space, and B is oblivious to that degree of order. Or more likely, it requires a conscious exercise of effort to perceive the degree of order. If…
My partner tends to "ruminate" on making phone calls - setting up appointments, customer service stuff, etc. I am on the phone all day for work, so it's no big deal for me to deal with the calls. Sometimes, I ask my partner to make a call. Most times, she doesn't do it within the agreed upon time period. I either do it myself, she gets to it E V E N T U A L L Y, or it doesn't get done. I used to fight about this beca…
I think you've got it backwards. Whether the glass ended up in the dishwasher or not didn't matter much to him. It mattered a lot to her and instead of putting in the bit of effort, he tried to justify to himself why he shouldn't have to.
My husband has a thing about making phone calls. I've got other crap I put off for similar reasons, but phone calls are not an issue for me. So when a call needs made and I have the information needed, I'll do it and save him the stress. Not a big deal for me at all, but it takes something off his plate that he doesn't like to do.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for writing this. I have a question for you, since my marriage ended for reasons similar to this author's. Why is the wife's desire more important than his? In other words, why must the husband live the way the wife wants and compromise is not acceptable (especially if they share cleaning responsibilities) -- compromise could look like "sometimes I do it her way, sometimes I do it my way." Why can't a partner…
If it is unimportant to you, and important to her, then splitting the difference doesn’t mean doing it your way half the time. If it instead is important to both of you, then you have a fundamental problem that you need to sit down and work through. Maybe there is a compromise that will leave both of you happy. Maybe one of you is willing to try changing. Or maybe you have an irreconcilable difference and need to spl…
Right, you do this small act of service because you are in love with your partner. Ideally not even because it makes her happy, but because it makes you happy to make her happy.
The upshot of the article, IMO, is that they were no longer in love.
And that lack of love became most apparent by observing all the tiny acts of service that people in love do for each other, and people who are merely co-habitating and perhaps also co-parenting, do not give a flying fuck about and use as a safe thing to argue about instead of admitting the truth.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you're hurting someone it's on you to stop before they decide they've had enough. After that you can work with them to get what you want in a way that makes sense for you both. Compromise always comes after harm reduction.
When someone is getting hurt by their life partner, they need to speak clearly and explicitly about what is going on and what they want. Expecting your partner to read your mind will end in resentment. Can't reduce harm if you don't speak up.
The author makes it clear that these things were communicated to him. No one needed to read anyone's mind. He just felt like it wasn't a big deal, so he chose not to change his habits.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s never really about the dishes. The dishes are just a thing in physical space. I'd clarify that sometimes it is actually about the dishes. As someone with ADHD being in a living space with clutter slows me down and perpetuates more clutter. My solution to that is to never generate that sort of clutter - it leads to a destructive cycle I've identified in myself. If the person I'm sharing space with starts that c…
If dirty dishes trigger you, then you need to make sure the dishes get done. You are the principal person responsible for your own well being. You shouldn't force someone to do your bidding simply because you're triggered. I say this as someone who suffers from severe anxiety, and has to work very hard to not bully my family around to accommodate my anxiety.
A healthy relationship involves giving and taking - it isn't bullying to have certain occasional needs. Nobody on earth is perfect, we all come with some quirks - because we only have one pass through life it can be difficult to tell what's reasonable and what's unfairly demanding, those making demands a third party would call unreasonable are often blind to it themselves... that said most relationships will compromise on arrangements either partner needs to operate healthily. My SO happens to suffer from absolutely atrocious migraines that can take them out for weeks at a time - I am flexible for accommodations on this point and they're flexible on my own needs, even if the exchange is uneven it may still be desirable to stay in a relationship that adds a lot to your life in other ways. Each individual needs to make the decision that's right for them.
On the topic of your anxiety, if you discuss it with your partner there is a good chance that through communication you'll become better at functioning as a unit then you could on your own.
Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
If being asked to put a glass in the dishwasher is an assault on one's identity, then so be it. But such a person is probably also ill-suited to marriage or any similar relationship.
You’re missing the point. That’s one instance. Marriages are made up of thousands of these instances. Are you going to change your behaviors for all of those? Because I have, and it is tiring. Resentment builds on both sides.
Exactly. You continue to change until finally you reach a breaking point and the relationship is destroyed. Alternatively, you change on some things, push back on others, and try to reach compromises when you can. If your partner refuses to accept anything other than "victory" in every conflict, hopefully at least you learn this before you've sunk 20 years into the marriage.